White House Petition for FIRST Funding

[wilsonmw04]

73 signatures in 12 hours. 77 more and it goes live on the website. Who is going to be the 150th signer?

[JesseK]

Word has it that the Simbots have touched the lives a million or more people. This should be a piece of cake.

[Rosiebotboss]

Be careful what you wish for. Many federal funding grants comes with HUGE strings and reporting guidliness attached. The red tape can be overwhelming.

[FrankJ]

I am sorry but I don't see the constitutional mandate for the federal government to fund First Teams. If you started down this road, where would it stop?

[wilsonmw04]

Originally Posted by FrankJ

I am sorry but I don't see the constitutional mandate for the federal government to fund First Teams. If you started down this road, where would it stop?

funny how folks see that. 10% of all education funding comes from the Federal Government. But that's another discussion for another day.

The thought process of our team was this: We had millions of people talking about the government funding a Death Star and had the WH reply to that petition. Heck there were blogs saying that it would be a great way to spur economic growth!

Why not use this tool to promote FIRST? It's far more relevant and just as cool as the Death Star.

[Andrew Schreiber]

I'm going to be a wet blanket here.

This is a terrible idea. (cue angry looks and cries of outrage... read on and then hit the neg rep button) Let's talk growth -

In the last 2 years JC Penny was heavily involved in funding teams. They gave schools money for the KoP and that's it. Our growth numbers were great. Lots of rookie teams. Pats on the back for everyone, yay us. The bad thing with all of those teams was that they had money for registration for an event. They didn't have money for additional parts. They didn't have mentors. They didn't have tools. What's more, FIRST didn't/doesn't have the resources they need to train new lead mentors. So we ended up with this group of teams who showed up to their regional with no bumpers, or with their motors wired directly to their battery, or who just never show up because they got discouraged.

Now, a lot of us don't see why this is bad. But then, you've never spent 6 weeks fighting with a system in your teacher's garage only to never have it work. You've never gone to an event and been struggling to move while the uber elite team next to you has this professionally built machine. It's bloody discouraging. So, what's the problem? They don't come back.

Big deal right? They weren't the type of students we were looking for? Screw that, we just created a whole new group of students and mentors and parents who say "math and science is too hard for me". Instead of changing the culture we've perpetuated it. We've moved backwards.

So, how do we solve it? We change our focus, we stop focusing on growth. We need to focus on sustainability. We need to focus on helping teams build sustainable models for funding, for leadership, for recruiting, and for sponsors. I hate seeing rookie teams form and fail in short spans. FIRST is hard. It's supposed to be. We can't keep giving people a check and expecting them to succeed. We need to stop this model. It takes a village to raise a child but it takes a community to build a FIRST team.

[wilsonmw04]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

I'm going to be a wet blanket here.

This is a terrible idea. (cue angry looks and cries of outrage... read on and then hit the neg rep button) Let's talk growth -

In the last 2 years JC Penny was heavily involved in funding teams. They gave schools money for the KoP and that's it. Our growth numbers were great. Lots of rookie teams. Pats on the back for everyone, yay us. The bad thing with all of those teams was that they had money for registration for an event. They didn't have money for additional parts. They didn't have mentors. They didn't have tools. What's more, FIRST didn't/doesn't have the resources they need to train new lead mentors. So we ended up with this group of teams who showed up to their regional with no bumpers, or with their motors wired directly to their battery, or who just never show up because they got discouraged.

Now, a lot of us don't see why this is bad. But then, you've never spent 6 weeks fighting with a system in your teacher's garage only to never have it work. You've never gone to an event and been struggling to move while the uber elite team next to you has this professionally built machine. It's bloody discouraging. So, what's the problem? They don't come back.

Big deal right? They weren't the type of students we were looking for? Screw that, we just created a whole new group of students and mentors and parents who say "math and science is too hard for me". Instead of changing the culture we've perpetuated it. We've moved backwards.

So, how do we solve it? We change our focus, we stop focusing on growth. We need to focus on sustainability. We need to focus on helping teams build sustainable models for funding, for leadership, for recruiting, and for sponsors. I hate seeing rookie teams form and fail in short spans. FIRST is hard. It's supposed to be. We can't keep giving people a check and expecting them to succeed. We need to stop this model. It takes a village to raise a child but it takes a community to build a FIRST team.

Hmm, it's interesting how you assumed that we meant FRC teams. That is not the case. As a FIRST organization that competes in FTC and FRC and mentors and hosts FLL and JrFLL teams, we understand that FRC is not for everyone. Even with very minimal support, teams can be successful in the FIRST community.

This petition is not meant to get that funding. It is a tool to get the conversation started about the importance of STEM in our country's future.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by wilsonmw04

Hmm, it's interesting how you assumed that we meant FRC teams. That is not the case. As a FIRST organization that competes in FTC and FRC and mentors and hosts FLL and JrFLL teams, we understand that FRC is not for everyone. Even with very minimal support, teams can be successful in the FIRST community.

This petition is not meant to get that funding. It is a tool to get the conversation started about the importance of STEM in our country's future.

I could apply the same logic to FTC and FLL as well. In fact, I've personally experienced what happens when the talking heads up top dictate that something is going to happen and no one in the trenches has any idea how to implement it (for FRC, FLL, FTC, VEX, and BEST).

[mdiradoorian]

Good points andrew.

However, what about he teams that do have the mentors, but barely have enough money to go to the regional and build a robot. They apply to those grants and sponsorships and often they dont get it. The way I see it it is another way to fundraise and to promote science and technology and FIRST in this country. If this administration wants to help education and increase STEM education in schools, they should consider this petition. It is our responsibily to get 100,000 signers, if every team gets maybe 50 people to sign it we could very well get over that number.

Andrew it is great that JC Penney gives out grants to those teams but FIRST is a learning experiece, most teams do horrible in their rookie season. They return stronger the next season because they know have the experience on how to build a robot in a given time constraint.

We can do this, it is a great idea in my opinion.

[buchanan]

Speaking as an adult, I think one of the best things we can do for the next generation is stop borrowing money that they, not we, will have to pay back.

This might be a great thing were there money in hand to pay for it, but there's not. As with any new spending, every marginal dollar would be borrowed.

If engineers cannot appreciate that there's no free lunch, who can?

Sorry. The thought is worthy, but the idea is ultimately bad. No support here.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by buchanan

Speaking as an adult, I think one of the best things we can do for the next generation is stop borrowing money that they, not we, will have to pay back.

This might be a great thing were there money in hand to pay for it, but there's not. As with any new spending, every marginal dollar would be borrowed.

If engineers cannot appreciate that there's no free lunch, who can?

Sorry. The thought is worthy, but the idea is ultimately bad. No support here.

I hope you're not trying to softball in a political argument here. Either indirectly through government contracts or right from federal agencies, FIRST thrives because it is already backed by the government at its center. BAE, BAH, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Harris, General Dynamics, Halliburton, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Honeywell, L3 Communications, MIT, Motorola, Verizon, Raytheon, Siemens, Rockwell Collins, Texas Instruments, Northrop Grumman, Rolls Royce, Mitsubishi, and more are all on two lists: the top 100 defense contractors in the United States, whose contracts total in the range of 6 to 7 million USD per day, and the top 100 FIRST contributors, who are title sponsors of events, provide grants and mentors to teams, and are major integral sponsors to some of the powerhouse teams. FIRST would not exist at all without some of these, and would not be the power it is now if not for defense contract money that eventually trickles down a tiny bit to teams. The third largest industry in the United States also employs a majority of FRC mentors, regional committee members, and global board members, and also takes a major part in the second largest portion of our federal budget->deficit->debt. It's a slippery slope I'm not going to comment on, so I would avoid it here.

I will not avoid saying that I look forward to the inevitable, creative rejection letter that will be received if this petition earns enough signatures to merit a response, like most other wh.gov petitions have earned. /s

[buchanan]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

I hope you're not trying to softball in a political argument here.

This whole thread is a political discussion. If a petition to government action ain't political, nothing is. If CD has a policy against such, it should go bye-bye.

[wilsonmw04]

Originally Posted by buchanan

This whole thread is a political discussion. If a petition to government action ain't political, nothing is. If CD has a policy against such, it should go bye-bye.

No, this post is about getting FIRST into the eye of the general public through a website. It has turned into a political discussion. I would request that if you don't like my teams approach to outreach PM me and we can discuss it.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by buchanan

This whole thread is a political discussion. If a petition to government action ain't political, nothing is. If CD has a policy against such, it should go bye-bye.

Glad to see you understand.

Just to be clear, I've never been behind the idea of aimlessly throwing money-bombs at FIRST. In the past two years, Virginia (the state in which 1086 and 422 operate) has netted +2 FRC teams, but has had 9 rookies register. That means we lost seven teams that last competed in 2011 or 2012. One of the teams was the RAS at Virginia and the Highest Rookie Seed on Galileo. I have actually sat in a room with people and I just kept asking the questions "What are we doing wrong? Why aren't we doing enough?" Because it is obvious we are not doing enough. Virginia veterans are not doing enough to support rookie teams. The Mid-Atlantic does not set exemplary examples you see in the Midwest, Northeast, Michigan, California, Texas, New England, and Canada, and it's something that needs to be fixed even though I have neither the time nor physical availability or training to help. I'm just throwing that out there. I shot off a bunch of emails to rookies last year, only heard back from two, and both said they were fine. Only 1 still exists. Whether it be at a global, regional, or state board, or team, we are doing something wrong and throwing money at the problem is not going to fix it, that much I know.

We try to plant trees in the desert. There may be enough money to throw together for a rookie KOP and registration fee, but there are improper human resources, improper or incomplete preparation or training, and a host of other things. Granted, nothing can prepare you for a rookie FRC season, but in trying to spread the gospel of FIRST, we try to sell a product some school districts and communities can't buy yet for a variety of reasons.

FIRST is important to us. It's important to me. When we start teams that just aren't ready to exist yet, they will fail, and when the time comes for a team to GROW there instead of just come into existence at the fling of some veteran team's wand and a trickle of cash, it won't happen. Why would the community want to get burned again by robotics?

The whole organization is doubtlessly on the precipice of a huge boom. The students who participated in the beginning of the modern era of FRC are now employed, settling down, and may be looking to mentor a team (and 1114 and 2056 can tell you what FIRST alumni-mentors can do to a program). The American economy is starting to actually perk back up. The organizational infrastructure of FIRST is shifting the competition structure to prepare and enable us for this. This isn't a time to push for inorganic and possibly disruptive or destructive growth.

That's all, I guess.

[pfreivald]

While I agree that the discussion is inherently political and pretending otherwise is a bit silly, I'll let that go to say this:

I'm inclined to agree that the focus should be on sustainability, and not expansion.

Our non-profit has created two FRC teams in three years, one of which fell apart after one year due to reasons that had nothing to do with money or build space or even mentors, while the other is going strong and building wonderfully. Invite parents and students from other schools into your team for a year, or two, or three, or five. When they are ready -- with experienced mentors and students, eager sponsors, build space, tools, etc, spin them off into their own team where they can recruit a bunch of rookies from their own school/town/community.

If I were a betting man, I'd wager that this kind of organic growth will in the long run be much more successful than showing up at a school with a pile of money and saying, "Hey, who wants to build robots?"

The current method is a bit too Darwinian for my tastes.